


Sagenite

by ImperialMint



Series: i don't want to be that crashing wave [tumblr prompts] [19]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-05
Updated: 2015-11-05
Packaged: 2018-04-30 04:29:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5150267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImperialMint/pseuds/ImperialMint
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rouge dreams, knowing that the time they are on is just borrowed. Soon, Roger will return to the sea, one way or another.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sagenite

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Arzani](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arzani/gifts).



> The song that inspired this was [Black Current by Rachel Sermanni](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swx7e1m6POU)! I hope you enjoy :D

The dreams come in Rouge’s second trimester. She thinks nothing of them at first – she heard women often experienced strange dreams – but hers feel different. She doesn’t mention them to Roger, he has enough to worry about (and he thinks she can’t feel the bed move when he leaves in the night to cough for hours on end, despite all his assurances he is fine, Rouge knows he is now). They are only dreams, anyway.

She hums to herself as she leaves the house. Roger is still asleep and the morning is still dark. The town will be bustling with the market, but that’s not where Rouge is heading. She’s heading to the cliffs, to the crest of the island where almost no one goes. It’s cursed, they say, but Rouge doesn’t believe in things like curses or demons. People are what they make themselves to be, and nothing is going to come for her.

Birds call out as she arrives at the cliff. She sits on the edge of the cliff, watching the sea, and breathes in deeply. This is her safe place, somewhere she can think in peace. Her mother showed it to her when she was younger, but Rouge had never appreciate it back then. Now she knows she wants to tell her own child of this place, let them watch the birds and the ocean and gather themselves back to whole.

She dreamt she was a bird last night. She was flying above the waves, surf bursting upwards. She was free, the entire world nothing under her wings. She’d flown and flown, and then her body had weighted down, her bones growing heavy and human form returning. Rouge had fallen, helpless to the sea she had once loved.

She doesn’t think it means anything. It can’t. Dreams are nothing, Rouge knows that. She sighs, rubs the tiny bulge of her stomach, and closes her eyes. She can hear the waves crashing and wonders how long it will be before she loses Roger to them once more. 

She knows the day is coming, the day will always come, and she wonders if she will drown in sorrow, like the bird plummeting into the sea.

.

The dreams never stop, not really. Rouge mentions the odd one to Roger, but he looks at her as if she is spouting nonsense.

“Dreams are odd,” is all he has to offer, and Rouge retreats to the cliff before she hurls something at him. He’s been cagey recently, as if he’s trying to make up his mind. Rouge could tell him that he’s already made his mind up, but telling him that means she really will lose him, and even if he’s in a shitty mood, she’s not prepared to do that.

Halfway through the day, he tells Rouge that he’s going for a walk. He’s not back by dinner and so she decides to head to bed, frustrated that he can just run away like this. Rouge knows that’s an easy lie she can tell herself (because Roger is the last person who will be able to stay hidden), but it makes her feel better and so she believes it for the night. 

She dreams again, panic gripping her when she wakes. She feels hot, echoes of the flames of her dreams, and she runs to the bathroom, sitting over the toilet bowl for a long while. Nothing comes out of her, but she presses her forehead to the porcelain anyway, trying to cool herself.

There is a sound, a familiar shuffle, and the bathroom door opens, the light flickering on. Roger stands there for a moment, just looking down at her, and Rouge looks at his feet. He has sturdy feet, she thinks, the feet of a man who knows where he’s going and how he’ll get there. He’s a man who had fought for everything he has, a man who will fight until his very last breath, but he is so very whimsical. Roger will do what he wants and there will be nothing Rouge can do to stop him walking away.

“Rouge,” he says quietly, and she looks up at him, wanting to hate him oh so very much. 

But she loves him. She’ll always love him. No matter what he does, no matter when he leaves, she will always love him. Just as she knows he will always love her.

He walks over to her and sits down, wrapping her up in his arms. They don’t say anything, just sit there, and Rouge feels the calm of the sea roll through her, pushing back the fire of her dreams. She closes her eyes, rests her head against his shoulder, and he pulls her to him tightly.

They don’t let go for the entire night, despite the uncomfortable positions they are in and the cool of the bathroom. They don’t say a word, but they understand each other. 

.

Rouge is sitting in the garden one morning while Roger is making breakfast. He’s not the best at it, but he tries, and Rouge doesn’t feel up to doing much of anything today. The baby shifted in the night, wriggling uncontrollably, and she didn’t sleep well. Roger had been delighted to hear their child was already making moves, but Rouge was less impressed if she had to spend the next however many nights in intense discomfort.

Still, she thinks, it’s the best sign. Their child is alive and well, even if he’s a troublemaker so early on.

“I had a dream about you last night,” Roger says as he brings Rouge a drink. She raises an eyebrow, knowing how little faith in dreams he has. He kisses her forehead gently, taking a step back to the kitchen.

“You were a bird, flying over the sea,” he says, smiling in memory of his ocean. Rouge wonders what he’s imagining – Raftel? East Blue? The ocean surrounding Baterilla? 

There is the shrill beep of an alarm and Roger’s expression plummets into panic. He runs off, leaving Rouge to think about his dream, remembering as she had flown and then fallen, the sea she loved turning on her.

She closes her eyes and rests a hand over her belly. There will be no tragedies here.

.

The pictures are printed on every piece of paper she seems to find. The first one sends shock running through Rouge’s body, but by the time she sees what has to be the thousandth, she feels nothing. She remembers warmth and a soft kiss, gentle eyes and a kind smile, and that’s how she wants to keep on remembering him. She doesn’t want to see a grin and the flash of blades, nameless figures beside her love in his final moments.

Rouge knows that some of his crew were there. She knows that because Rayleigh told her, sneaking onto the island to pass on the news before she could hear it in the papers first. They had both cried, grief rising to swallow them like the sea a small island.

Rayleigh isn’t here now though. There is no one, no family, no lover, no friends, to support Rouge as the papers come thick and fast. Everywhere she treads in the market town seems to be covered in them. She can’t even mourn him properly, for if she does, their child will die.

Oh she’s already seen it happening. Down in the harbour. The government have been sniffing out current and former pirates, taking the women who are pregnant. Rouge knows they’ll be coming for her soon, and she feels her baby stir.

“You have to stay in there,” she whispers. She’ll protect this child if it kills her, she knows that. Rouge had already lost Roger, but she will not lose their child.

She finishes at the market and returns to her cliff, staring out at the sea as she pulls her knees to her chest. Rouge cries for what seems like hours, birds calling out in alarm, as if they were asking her what was wrong, asking her to join them and be free and-

Rouge cannot fly though. And even if she could, if by some miracle she could become a bird, there is nothing to stop her falling to the sea. No, Rouge cannot not flee Baterilla as a bird or human. If she tries, that would be it. The government will know. This is a storm she had to weather here.

The days become a little easier as time passes. Some nights are spent with Rouge clutching her bedcovers, wracking sobs flowing through her as she thinks of Roger in the papers, his haunting grin and proclamation to the world. Despite what she wanted, that is the image that has stayed in her mind, and Rouge feels exhausted whenever she thinks of him.

She wants him back desperately. 

Their child stirs, and Rouge closes her eyes. Not yet, she thinks, the small bulge of her stomach still small enough that people will not think it’s a baby. Not yet, my love, she thinks, and she opens her eyes to the view of an empty house, silence all around her.

Not yet.

.

Rouge is exhausted, but there is someone who needs her. She can feel tears roll down her cheeks, and she ignores the midwife and the man at the door. She knows who he is, even without the papers proclaiming him a hero and honouring him, Roger told her all about Monkey D. Garp, but that doesn’t mean she has to acknowledge him. 

He’s going to be taking her baby, her Ace, away from her. Rouge isn’t stupid, she knows that. She also knows that this is something Roger asked for, promising that they’d be well protected after he left.

How was he to know Rouge wouldn’t make it?

“You’re perfect,” she whispers to Ace. He is quiet, looking up at her with wide eyes. She doubts he can properly see her, but she strokes his cheek, watching as his eyes lower slowly. 

“I love you, Ace,” she says, darkness blotting her vision. She thinks she hears the midwife gasp and can feel the sheets grow sodden as her body finally gives up its effort of sustaining itself after so many months. She’ll bleed out, Rouge thinks, but her son is safe. That is what matters, that he is safe.

“Keep him safe,” Rouge says, willing her voice to be strong as she cradles Ace to her chest. The midwife is shouting for her assistant, but it’s too late. Garp straightens with her words though, eyes full of respect (and how strange to see something like that aimed at her), and he gets it. She wonders if he has children of his own. She thinks of Ace, smiling as she remembers him looking up at her.

And then there is nothing.


End file.
